Which Deck Plate is That?

This might happen to you one day. I’m glad in retrospect that it happened to me, and right at the start of a trip I was leading. That’s because this is how it always happens - at exactly the wrong time, and it has to be fixed right now! I never would have set this up as an instructional opportunity on purpose, but it worked very well that way.

The start of the trouble was simple enough. We were prepping the Catalina 42 Betty for departure, and I asked a crew member to top-off all the water tanks. There are a series of deck plates on Betty. 4 of them are for filling the water tanks, 2 for pumping out black water in the holding tanks , and one for filling the diesel fuel tank.

As you can imagine, our crew member was mortified when red diesel fuel came spurting up out of what she thought was the starboard aft water tank deck fill. When she realize what happened and came to tell me, she looked like she felt she had sunk the boat, and our trip.

There’s a Straightforward Fix

It turns out that though time consuming, the fix is actually very straightforward. Click on the thumbnail below to play the video segment and see how we fixed it.

Here’s the fix.

Get ready with a plastic bottle, and start the engine.

Don’t let the water fill the bowl to the top! Engine off, drain, and repeat.

Dispose of the waste fuel-water properly.

It took about 2 hours to drain about a gallon of water. We left for our Anchoring At Catalina weekend, kept checking the bowl in the Racor fuel-water separator, and drained a little more water after each time we had the engine on. At the end of the 3-day trip, we had all but a tiny fraction of it out.

That was a great outcome, and a real test of how well the fuel-water separator works.

Sharp Eye on the Temperature Guage

If you read my last guest blog, you’ll remember that I was over the moon about being able to change the oil on our 1989 Catalina (Universal 25 XP). Well, that was one of the easy jobs! A few weeks back as we were motoring back into the harbor after a delicious sail off Long Beach, I glanced at the engine temp gauge and noticed it was 240 degrees. Yep, panic set in and I quickly shut her down!

Impeller before…

Impeller after…where’d those pieces go?

Most likely culprit? The impeller. Marc successfully showed me how to replace the impeller (we always keep spare parts on board) and then we knew we were going to have to get to the heat exchanger! Project for another day!

Cleaning Out the HX

Of course, the “another day” arrived and armed again with my favorite site on maintenance for our Catalina 34’ (www.realitycheck.me) we prepared for a BIG project. Thanks again to Steve and Rebecca for such great explanations, instructions and photos!

New zinc installed

Impeller pieces removed

One of the first steps was getting all of the coolant out of the engine. Once that was done, it was safe to remove the heat exchanger. We replaced a couple of hoses at the same time though it probably wasn’t necessary. I knew I would need new gaskets for the ends of the heat exchanger and they were readily available from Catalina Direct. I was so curious to see what would be in the heat exchanger!! Indeed, we found a good chunk of the pencil zinc anode that had broken off and lots of pieces of impeller!

After cleaning out the HX, I flew into artistic mode with a burgundy scotch bright pad, scrubbing all the corrosion off the end caps til they were as shiny as a brand new penny!

HX before…

HX after

She Looks Pretty, Burps, and Runs Cool

I cleaned up the heat exchanger by using a wire brush as per Steve’s advice then, the really fun part, I painted the heat exchanger Old Ford Blue! It looks beautiful! Put the gaskets on the end caps, sealed everything up and Marc and I worked together to clamp the heat exchanger and hoses back on. We filled the coolant and started the engine…. Oh no!! Overheating! We tried a couple of things, when my brilliant Captain thought there might be an airlock where we previously had the water heater. That was the ticket! We released the air (burp!) from that and we were in business! It’s so important to get that heat exchanger off and cleaned out if you have lost a zinc or have bits of impeller that have broken off. While it was challenging and an almost all day project for us, being the first time, when we have to do it again, it will be so much easier!

Learning the Basics

I’m a boat owner. So, I am either going to learn how to do some basic maintenance myself or rob a bank to have a professional do it. Since I don’t look so good in black masks, I decided to give it a shot with my Captain standing by to help. It never hurts to have some muscles in the vicinity!

Armed with wonderful step by step instructions on how to change the oil on the Universal M25 XP (thank you Steve and Rebecca of Reality Check I had my list and my supplies ready to go! What made this job easy was having the right tools on hand! We have the oil collector from West Marine, a container to put the old oil to dispose of properly, and probably the most important item was having the adjustable wrench to get the old oil filter off!

Always a tight squeeze…

Success in Maintenance

This was an exciting moment for me because being successful in maintenance on the boat is so fulfilling and I love learning the skills associated with boat ownership. After successfully changing the oil filter and putting new oil in, it was time to discover where the pencil anode for the heat exchanger was and also how to get the transmission bolt out to check the transmission oil. Now, for you ole’ salts this may seem like some pretty basic stuff, but for a woman who is fairly new to sailing and boat ownership, this is huge accomplishment. The Captain is pretty darn happy too! How nice to be able to have your partner enthusiastically help with simple boat maintenance.

Create a Maintenance Log

I am of the thought that staying on top of things like changing pencil anodes, oil, fuel filters, etc., will definitely help avoid unnecessary problems. I have created a maintenance log for all areas of the boat that need to be checked on a monthly basis as well as things needing attention biannually, from the engine, to the deck, to the rigging, to the cabin. While there will undoubtedly be some issues that will require outside help, I am excited to be able to do general maintenance, give our girl some TLC and to learn more about her working parts! It’s taken some time to study and figure out exactly what parts to order, but every day I am growing in knowledge and that is cool, yet, still so much to learn.

Massage to Follow

Next projects? Taking off the heat exchanger, changing the fuel filter, buffing and waxing the hull – And then maybe a full body massage!